Jordan: 9/24/2012

From: Jordan Schouten
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 9:06 AM
To: Mike Schouten; schouten.julie; stringbeanjohn@gmail.com
Subject: my letter 9/24/2012

 

Well, this was an interesting week. It started out pretty lousy, but it turned out really good in the end. I learned about the power of fasting this week. The whole week we were just struggling. We weren´t finding people to teach, and the people we´ve been finding we only end up teaching them once. So, it´s been pretty rough for about a week and a half. We´ve just been going around looking for our invest and not finding them. But, on saturday, i fasted, because we needed help to find our invest and to have invest that are going to progress, instead of just teaching people lesson 1 and never finding them again. And finally, we started to have success again. we found almost all of our invest on saturday and we were able to invite them to church. And we found a couple of new invest that seem interested and so we´re going to work with them and try to help them come unto Christ. Then, on sunday, it just got better. We had 3 people come to church. It´s the first time we´ve had more than 1 in the whole time i´ve been training elder Smith. And 2 of the people that came are people that we´ve never even  taught. One was a 9 yr. old kid who´s parents are less active, but they want him to get baptized, so we´re going to teach them tonight, and then, another less active member came to church for the first time in 2 or3 months and brought one of her friends. We set an appointment to visit them on thursday, so we´re excited to teach them as well. And the 3rd invest was a guy we´re teaching named Inocencio. He´s awesome. His wife is less active. She got baptized when she was 11, but about 4 or 5 years ago, she kinda fell off the path and stopped coming to church and started doing some things she shouldn´t do. But, i felt like we should visit them during the week, so we went and taught them and Inocencio is Golden. He loves the gospel. He came to church yesterday and he loved it. In sacrament meeting, one of the speakers talked about families. And he really liked it. He told me afterwards that family is really important to him, but he feels like he´s not a great father and he wants to get better and he felt like the talk helped him learn what he can do to be a better father. He´s got a bapitsm date for oct. 6. So, we´re really excited for him. But anyways, back to the power of fasting... I really learned that by fasting, the Lord will do miracles. Our area was dead. Nothing was happening. We were working, but nothing was happening. But, through fasting, the Lord helped us out a ton, we had 3 people at church and we finally have invest that are progressing and are living the gospel
Other than that, not too much happened this week, other than it was transfers. I´m still training Elder Smith, just like i thought would happen. But, some things changed around in our district and now, Kyle Shegrud is in my district, so i´ll be seeing him every week. So, that will be cool. I´m excited. I´ll be able to do divisions with him as well.
Mom- i didn´t know you were going to have surgery. I hope everything went well and that you´re feeling better. I hate surgery. Getting my tonsils and wisdom teeth out was the worst. (especially when the doctor didn´t tell me that i wasn´t supposed to suck things out of straws after getting my wisdom teeth out.) I´ll be praying for you. Take it easy. Don´t work too hard and kill yourself. I haven´t got the package yet, but i´ll let you know when i get it. as for christmas, i still think it´s a little early. in october, i´ll think of something.
Dad- thanks for telling me about your job. (you never answered me the last 40 times i asked you :) ) Umm, my sole inserts, they´re totally destroyed, but they still work. My feet don´t have any problems (other than an ingrown toenail that i´m performing surgery on every morning) I think i´m alright. I´m kind of weird about replacing things unless they´re destroyed. After being in paraguay, were people wear clothes that are obviously 20 years old and falling apart, i´m super weird about spending money to replace something, unless its completely destroyed. So, for now, i think i´m okay.
Austin- how was Homecoming? who´d you take? Did you kiss her? hahahahahahahahaha. Don´t kiss girls. It just distracts you on the mission. (my comp has a girlfriend and she´s just a distraction. He´s getting better about it, but it still is a problem. So, don´t kiss girls.)
Tasha- how´s school? Glad you had a good week. Have fun. Help mom our for me.
Shaylee- i hope you like school. Have fun, work sorta hard, and help mom out as well.
The church is true. God is a god of miracles. i love serving him. The Spirit really testifies of the truth. We had 3 lessons this week with people that were incredible. The Spirit was so strong. It almost brought me to tears, which is pretty rare. But, sadly, these people closed their hearts to the Spirit, and trusted in the words of the Bible. We have to search for the Spirit in our lives and if we do so, we will feel His influence and we´ll be guided and we´ll follow the Lord in His way. I love the Gospel. It´s changing my life every day. I love serving the Lord.
Thanks for everything,
Love, Elder Jordan Schouten